


NHL Short Stories

by llamasonasurfboard



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, I will add more eventually as time passes, Literally everything you can think of, Male Friendship, Multi, bromances
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-25
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2019-03-23 19:49:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13795029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/llamasonasurfboard/pseuds/llamasonasurfboard
Summary: Short stories about different teams, teams that I do like and don't like. It's all a mixed bag of people and plots, which makes it funnier to write.Taking requests as well~Written;Toronto Maple Leafs (1)





	NHL Short Stories

**Author's Note:**

> I write too much. And change. And I hate it. Oml. Kill me. Ugh.

Auston absolutely hates certain things in life, some of them being William Nylander’s good looks, Mitchell Marner’s stupid laughter and Leo Komarov’s overprotectiveness. While William is standing by the mirror, fixing his stupidly perfect and soft hair, Auston looks at himself in the mirror. Mitch is laughing over a joke he’d made a few seconds ago while Leo is telling them, repeatedly, to hurry up as they need to get to the bus which is about to go in four minutes.

William blows a part of his hair out from his face, and he puts his hand back down in the hair gel and runs it through his hair. Mitch snorts, loudly, and it makes him laugh even harder as he slaps Auston on his back. Leo yells at the three boys to hurry up, because even if they’re three, all of them don’t take ten minutes to go on the toilet.

He’s absolutely right. Mitch had to take a piss and forced William and Auston with him, so William took it as an opportunity to fix his hair and Auston… well he just kind of stood there. He watched Mitch take a piss while trying not to hit the ring and how William was trying to style his hair. William had then called Auston over and asked him how he’d looked, and Auston was going to be blunt with him, so he decided to tell him it looked like shit. William had looked at him with a broken look, so Auston had been quick to say that he needed more hair gel. It had seemed to help.

“What are you thinking about, Matts?” William suddenly asks, looking over to him with his dreamy blue eyes. They are filled with worry and as the two gain eye contact Auston feels a pang of guilt washing over him. William is frowning, and it’s not a good look on him, and Auston almost feels as if he has to apologize to his friend.

He doesn’t however. Instead he turns his vision back to his own reflection and continue to stare into the dark abyss of his brown eyes. “Nothin',” he mumbles and decides to let his eyes fall to his hands, which are crumpled up on the sink. He knows that the other two are staring intently at him, worrying for him, but Auston’s not going to crumble under their eyes. While they are the two teammates that he is the closest to, Auston isn’t comfortable telling them about his worries over his games. On how every time he felt the hairs on his arms stand up, and for every face-off he did he thought he was going to fail and ultimately doom their team.

“Yes you are, dude,” Mitch says and pops up from behind him and William, throwing an arm around both of them. “It’s kinda evident that you’re thinking about something, spit it out. We’re not gonna judge you, y’know. Does it have anything to do with our last game? Relationship problems? Team problems? Coach? Trading?”

“Mitch, shut it,” William says, and Auston can almost feel the tears welling over. He doesn’t want to cry, he can’t cry, he shouldn’t cry. “Hey, Auston, you do know that you can tell us if there’s anything bothering you. None of us want you to feel bad over something, and if there’s anything we can do to help, we gladly will. We won’t look down on you nor will we tell anyone unless it’s something that could potentially harm someone or yourself. You are well aware that you can trust us, right?” William runs one of his hands through Auston’s hair, and he still don’t want to cry, he still can’t cry, he still shouldn’t cry.

He sniffs. It’s silent, but in the bathroom it’s nothing but. Auston feels as if it’s one of the loudest sounds he’s ever heard, and the ringing voices of both William and Mitch makes his head hurt. He doesn’t want to play hockey any longer, the constant anxiety isn’t worth it, he doesn’t want to play any longer. The itching by his wrists always makes him worry, he doesn’t want to play any longer. Everyone’s expectations on him makes him sick to his stomach, he doesn’t want to play any longer.

_ He doesn’t want to play any longer. _

“Auston!”

All of a sudden it’s as if everything comes back on him all at once, and Auston looks up from the sink to meet his own eyes in the mirror. He’s sweating, his brows are furrowed and panic is clear on his face, especially in his eyes. His senses come back all at once, the smell of William’s hair gel, Mitch’s whispers about his worry for Auston, his own reflection showing a horrible mess.

He throws up. The yellow and green mess stains the sink with its disgusting color, and Auston heaves out the last of his insides. It makes his throat burn, badly, and he feels his knees give up under him. Someone grabs ahold of his body and helps him down to the ground, while someone else seems to turn on the water to clean the now disgusting sink.

“It’s okay,” Auston hears Mitch’s voice whisper in his ear, and someone starts rubbing circles on his back. It’s comforting, knowing that someone is going to take care of him, that he isn’t going to be alone. But at the same time that is exactly what he doesn’t. He doesn’t want people to know that he’s constantly anxious, waiting for the worst to happen. He doesn’t want people to believe he is weak.

It goes silent for a while. Auston’s sight comes back to normal, and so does his breathing, and his pulse goes down a tremendous amount. Mitch makes sure to clean his friend up while William takes care of the sink, and puts some hair gel in Auston’s hair after Mitch has cleaned him up. Partly because of how his hair looks and partly because he wants to drown out the disgusting smell. Neither of them say anything however, which makes Auston feel both worse and better. Physically speaking he can’t speak, but psychologically he’s screaming.

“You don’t have to say anything until you’ve recovered,” William then says softly and sits down in front of Auston, running a hand through his styled hair. “We’re not going to leave or get impatient, take your time.” he puts one of his hands on Auston’s knees and smiles. It makes Auston smile as well, as it always does, and even if his throat still is burning and the anxiety is bubbling in his stomach a little, he feels better than he did two minutes ago.

It takes a few minutes for him to come back down to Earth, but when he does, Auston sighs heavily and looks at his two teammates. “I just want to say thank you for staying with me and not, y’know, freaking out and calling for help, that would probably have worsened my condition,” he sniffs, wiping his nose with the sleeve of his jersey.

“Uh, is it okay if I ask you why you freaked out?” Mitch asks, sitting a little closer to William so he too could look at Austin’s face and not only on the side of his head.

Mitch looks worried while William has one of his eyebrows raised, but both of them clearly want to know. No wonder, Auston remembers once when William had suffered from an anxiety attack when Auston had been on the team for a few days. At first he had panicked, knowing exactly what William was going through and knowing how hard it was for himself to get out of it, but the boys on the team had talked him out of it, and while William clearly was shaken up he seemed to be in better spirits afterwards. After that, Auston knew that the boys would help him if he ever suffered from something of the like.

“A lot of times I feel like I’m letting the team down,” Auston confesses, immediately feeling a lump forming in his throat. “And that I’m not leading you like I should be doing. I know I’m not the team captain, but as a 1st overall draft pick and young and promising star, I feel as if I have to be better. I know I have years in the league in front of me, and I’m not even expected to be on the top of my career yet, but something in me just don’t shut up about how I’m not enough. I just want to be perfect, I want to be what everyone expects me to, I-" he stops there, feeling the tears well over. His eyes find a spot to look at in the roof, where there seems to be a stain.

Auston just can’t bring himself to look at the other two, seeing their judgemental looks on how he’s weak. He waits for their comments, on how stupid he is for thinking that, because he truly is. He is absolutely fucking retarded for thinking so and he is overreacting so badly that he’s just being a crybaby by this point, he is weak.

He is taken aback however, not getting the usual “Just change your thinking then", and the tears well up in his eyes again as he feels William wrap his arms around his neck. His teammate hugs him closely, almost so he settled himself in his lap, and Auston can do no other than let out a sob and wrap his arms around William’s body, too hugging him.

“It’s okay,” William whispers and plays with the hairs in the back of Auston’s neck. “You don’t have to feel as if you’re the best player, you don’t have to feel as if you’re going to score every time and you absolutely don’t have to feel the burden on your shoulders for every loss. You’re great, but you’re sadly not Wayne Gretzky, sorry to tell you. We do expect certain things from you, yes, but not that you’re going to win every game for us. We all have expectations on each other, even on the worst of us, but the one who has the highest expectations on you is no one but you, Matts.”

That’s when he breaks down, sobbing heavily as tears run down his cheeks. His chest heaves up and down and William almost topples over in to his lap. Mitch laughs a little, but Auston feels an arm wrap around his back, and all of a sudden both him and William are falling down to the floor. Between his tears a laughter rings, and Auston laughs loudly as William complains to Mitch about him touching his ass.

“You are well aware we care for you, right,” Mitch says as Auston and William fall over to his left, William almost being crushed between the two. “If you’re ever bothered by anything you are free to tell us, and we could inform our teammates as well. You know Willy has some problems at times, and no one’s judging him, we are totally okay with you feeling the way you do. You just have to realize that the responsibilities of the team isn’t on your shoulders. You’re not captain nor assistant captain, and so it’s not your work to take care of the team and make sure everyone is at their best. You’re too young for that, Matts. You have to grow up before you can carry the team with you, and currently you’re just like the two of us, following the rest.”

“I know,” Auston whispers and wipes at his eyes. “I- I promise I’m going to tell you if anything ever gets overwhelming. I just feel useless at times, and I know it’s the wrong mentality but I just can’t help it, y’know?” he sits up with his upper body and leans on his right arm.

“Yeah, we get it,” Mitch says and copies Auston’s move, only leaning on his left instead of right arm. “And we’re gonna try to change it, because while you are good, that doesn’t translate to having to take care of the team. The best player doesn’t always have to take care of the team, that’s why we’re a team. We take care of each other equally as much.”

“I guess so...” Auston mumbles, looking down at his shirt.

Yet again a silence falls, but it’s quickly broken by William telling them both about how it smells like piss now that he thinks of it. They all laugh at it and help William up from the floor, from the piss stinking floor, apparently.

Their happiness is short-lived however as there’s a loud banging on the door. “We missed the bus, idiots. Now we have to wait another twenty minutes!” It’s Leo, and he’s clearly pissed. But the three friends only laugh at it, hysterically. Neither of them can really tell why but they just laugh, laugh so much that Mitch begins to complain about getting stomach pains in between his laughter.

That’s exactly how Auston wants it to be. Laughter, smiles and happiness, and if he fights for it, he knows he can get it. Of course with a little bit of help along the way, but he knows he will get there eventually.


End file.
